


Convergence

by Soledad



Series: Beautiful Minds [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Five Times, Smart Is The New Sexy, beautiful minds, icemanverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2205423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Toshiko Sato didn’t sleep with John Watson and one time she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Convergence

**Author's Note:**

> All these cases mentioned in this story will be fully described in “Beautiful Minds”, once I get around to actually writing it. *g*

**CONVERGENCE  
by Soledad**

**Title:** Convergence  
 **Author:** Soledad  
 **Fandom:** Sherlock BBC/Torchwood crossover (sort of)  
 **Genre:** Friendship/Romance  
 **Rating:** Teens, just to be on the safe side  
 **Series:** a side story to “Beautiful Minds”. Set in the same AU as “Iceman  & the Coffee Boy”.  
 **Timeframe:** after The Great Game for Sherlock, up to Baskerville  
 **Summary:** Five times Toshiko Sato didn’t sleep with John Watson and one time she did. 

**Disclaimer:** Characters and situations belong to the almighty BBC in general and to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss in particular. Some ideas are borrowed from John’s online blog. Go and read it, it's hilarious.

**Note:** All these cases mentioned in this story will be fully described in “Beautiful Minds”, once I get around to actually writing it. *g*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **PART 1 – THE GEEK INTERPRETER**

The first time John learns about Toshiko’s existence is during Moriarty’s perverted game. He’s wondering how the criminal mastermind could know about 221C and why would Sherlock recognise the place – until he’s told that the bleak little flat actually _does_ have a tenant. One that has been “borrowed” by Mycroft for some very hush-hush job aboard but who’s just about to return.

“I wish she’d been here when this all started,” Sherlock says morosely. “A computer genius like her might have tracked down Moriarty in time.

This is the first time John hears Sherlock speak about another human being with something akin to respect. A lot _of_ respect, actually, which John finds almost shocking.  
  
“I thought _you_ were the computer genius here,” he says.

Sherlock’s shenanigans – like the trick he uses to sabotage the press conferences of the police – are practically legend, and they require considerable computer skills. But Sherlock shakes his head.

“I’m _good_ ,” he says. “Good enough to play pranks on Lestrade and his idiot minions. She, though… she could bring empires to fall with a mouse click.

“So who _is_ she?” John asks, genuinely curious now.

“Her name is Toshiko Sato,” Sherlock replies, rattling down more personal (and presumably confidential) data about the girl than any mortal man should be able to deliver in half an hour.

He delivers them in ten seconds.

John automatically blocks out everything after the fifth. Partly out of respect for the young woman’s privacy, partly because some things are more fun if one finds them out himself. Little secrets of a woman belong into that category, at least for John.

And he definitely wants to find out more about the mysterious Toshiko Sato. Any woman who manages to wake Sherlock’s interest – even _respect_ – must be quite extraordinary. The fact that she looks freaking cute on the only picture he finds of her on the internet (on some obscure scientific website) also plays a role in John’s wish to meet her, of course. So far, Sherlock’s demands on his time have snipped every half-hearted effort to have a social life in the bud. Perhaps a woman who lives under the same roof and is used to Sherlock’s antics would tolerate the situation better.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The mysterious tenant of 221C arrives two days after the incident at the pool, accompanied by a lorry full of furniture that apparently had been in storage during her absence. She’s a lovely young woman in her early thirties, wearing what Harry likes to call ‘the sexy secretary outfit’: a dark grey pencil skirt with a short-sleeved, form-fitting blouse and high heels. Her long, straight dark hair is hastily twisted into a low knot on the nape of her neck, and she’s wearing glasses to complete the picture.

Unlike Sherlock, she bears no outward sign of being a genius. To be honest, she looks like a typical wallflower in your average lab. Like another Molly Hooper.

But her grip is surprisingly firm when they are introduced to each other, and when their eyes meet – she looks him straight in the eyes – John realises his mistake. He understands that, unlike Molly, Toshiko Sato isn’t particularly _shy_. She’s _reserved_ , in that unparalleled way only someone of Japanese origins can be. Beyond that inscrutable mask, however, she’s well aware of her own worth and her somewhat haunted eyes reveal that she’s seen much – perhaps too much – in her young life already.

Which may be the reason why she appears easily intimidated while, in fact, she is _not_.

There’s calculated interest in those haunted eyes when Sherlock introduces John as “Dr Watson. He assists me in my cases.”

“PhD or MD?” she asks promptly.

“MD,” John replies truthfully, a little surprised by the question.

“Pity,” she says with an ironic half-smile. “I was so looking forward to consult a fellow scientist from time to time.”

“Well, there’s always Sherlock,” John offers, but she shakes her head.

“Chemistry isn’t my field of interest; and he’s pretty much an amateur in every other area. A supremely well-informed amateur, for sure, but still an amateur.”

Amazingly enough, Sherlock doesn’t take her apart with scathing remarks for that statement. John’s respect for the reserved little woman goes up several notches.

“So, you’re a doctor, then,” she says, giving him a measuring look. “Ex-military, I suppose – invalided out of service?”

John groans in despair that’s only half-faked. “Oh God, not another one!”

She smiles at him. “Don’t worry; I’m not pulling a Sherlock on you. It’s just so that I recognise a soldier when I see one. Both my parents were in the RAF; plus you’re favouring your left side – wounded?”

“Shot in the shoulder, actually,” John admits, and she winces in sympathy.

“Ouch! Not good. A bullet can cause a great deal of damage there I’m told. Is that why your hand’s trembling?”

John looks at her in suspicion. “Are you sure you’re _not_ related to Sherlock?”

She tilts her head to the side. “I’m merely observant, Dr Watson. Most quiet people are.”

“Please, call me John,” he says, and she nods in agreement.

“If you’ll call me Tosh,” she replies, and that’s that.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Barely has Toshiko settled down again when Sherlock takes on a new case… and a fairly ridiculous one, John finds. It’s something about issues in a comic that apparently have started happening in real life. Or so the three young men coming to Baker Street claim. They’re obviously insane, and John just can’t understand the “case” if it can be called one, would catch Sherlock’s fancy.

Yet it does. Turning away mysterious deaths and worldwide conspiracies, Sherlock decides to look into this one.

John is exasperated, since Chris Melas, the young man with the website about a series of comic books – _gothic novels_ , the guy corrects every time, and seriously, John is just about ready to shoot him the next time he does so – is clearly losing it. He’s already scared away most of his friends and family with his ridiculous idea of a conspiracy. Only his two equally insane assistants and a mysterious online chat partner hold out on his side. Even Sherlock admits that one of the three possible explanations is that the guy is suffering from some kind of psychological delusions.

This doesn’t hinder him, though, recruiting Toshiko’s help, and she agrees, just to have her peace from him. Being a computer genius that she is, it takes her no time at all to track down Chris’ mysterious chatting partner – who turns out to working for the publishers of said comic. Gothic novel. Whatever.

The three of them are equally upset when they realise that the publishers are using Chris as a form of advertising, not caring that it may turn him insane. Well, Toshiko and John are upset. Sherlock just wants to wrap up the case ‘cause now that he’s solved it, he’s bored again. Tosh finds it endearing how John can still get upset over Sherlock not caring for the human aspect of the case, even after having lived with the detective for eighteen months.

“What have you expected?” she asks with a shrug when they’re having a post-case drink in her flat that evening. “He’s a Holmes. Caring is not something they do.”

Knowing that she works for Mycroft in some nebulous way John realizes that she’d probably know more about that than he.

Unfortunately, the publishers haven’t actually done anything illegal, so calling in the police isn’t an option. So John and Sherlock use the latest issue of the comic – pardon, _gothic novel_ – to reveal their machinations to the wide audience.

That this requires them to dress up as ninjas and fight Chris – masked as one of the comic’s superheroes – before said audience in Soho is not something that would surprise John anymore. He _has_ been living with Sherlock for eighteen months, after all.

That he’s hurt in said mock fight when his bad leg gives in and he lands on his injured shoulder is a recurring occasion as well. Or that Sherlock would storm off, fed up with the solved case, leaving him to get home alone.

It is Toshiko who picks him up with her own car later, having followed their progress via CCTV. She takes him to her own flat, gives him some foul-smelling salve for his shoulder and a double Scotch to soothe his nerves.

That night, John crashes on the delicate leather sofa in her study/sitting-room/whatever. And when he types up the adventure in his blog a few days later (on June 16, to be accurate) there is no mention about Toshiko’s involvement.

John has learned to take Mycroft’s warnings seriously.


End file.
